Archive for category: Technology

Information and stories about technology news.

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Students Work on Prosthetics to Help World’s Poor


Providing prosthetics in developing countries can be challenging because of the lack of technology and support. Two students at Texas A&M University may have the potential to make prosthetics quicker, cheaper and more accessible.

On campus, Brandon Sweeney and Blake Teipel have discovered how to make prosthetic body parts using a 3D printer.

“With a typical 3D printed part, it’ll just peel apart between the layer, so it’s a pretty fragile piece, but for this technology, with the coating, as you print the layers you heat up the whole part and cause fusing to happen all across the entire component,” says Teipel.

Their new invention is increasing in demand. Teipel says, “Globally, every 30 seconds, there is a new amputee.” Most prosthetic options, however, are extremely expensive, sometimes $50,000 or more.

With their new discovery, they believe prosthetics should not be this expensive. “At the very basic level, the materials cost and the time it would take to make it? $20,” says Sweeney.

As products become more affordable, it is that much more possible to make them accessible for those in developing countries.

“Next generation materials are making it possible for us to address problems that have so far been too expensive to technologically advanced, especially for the world’s poor,” says Teipel.

Several large companies are interested in their technology and the pair hopes to team up with one who is socially conscious and believes in doing good.

– Kelsey Parrotte

Sources: KBTX, TSRHC, JMU
Photo: Flickr

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Kenyan Bitcoin Startup Receives Gates Foundation Funding

gates_foundationThrough innovation and funding, Kenyan bitcoin startup Bitsoko promises to revamp the way commerce is conducted in bustling markets in Nairobi and cities across Africa. The company has invented a digital wallet that employs blockchain technology to allow a smoother, cheaper transfer of funds between individuals.

Used in Bitcoin, blockchain technology saves and encrypts transaction records that allow for safe, speedy monetary transactions at a low cost.

This form of technology expands access to financial services for merchants and their customers. For sellers, such programming allows them to view and track customer payments while aggregating this data to produce complete financial and stock records, customer invoices and receipts, financial statements, and tax returns.

The acceleration of blockchain technology will also make transferring funds between individuals cheaper, encouraging mobile commerce.

Developments such as this will provide an alternative to inconvenient, slow transactions using cash or credit cards and will follow at the heels of the economic boom occurring in Africa. Such technology will foster economic growth and pair customers with suitable goods and services in a more efficient way.

According to Allan Juma, co-founder of Bitsoko, the brand hopes to be a leader in mobile finances, noting how “the financial structure in Kenya and throughout Africa has changed rapidly since the birth of mobile money by M-Pesa. We believe that this will only continue to grow”.

The company has recently attracted attention from international investors and organizations as well. It was recently awarded $100,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Global Challenges Explorations, an initiative providing support to groups working toward solutions to global problems.

Programs such as this one provide an incentive for entrepreneurs who have experienced societal challenges to develop efficient, sustainable strategies for improvement.

With its GCE funding, Bitsoko plans on expanding its access internationally, bringing mobile banking services to Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Sierra Leone in a project co-founder Daniel Bloch has named “Enable Universal Acceptance of Mobile Money Payments”.

Bringing this technology to new countries will spur economic growth and technological innovation that has been heating up Africa in recent years. With increased transactional accessibility, sellers can expect to create a larger, more diverse consumer base and enhanced output.

Partnerships between international organizations such as the Gates Foundation and local businesses can lead to far-reaching global solutions that empower entrepreneurs and their communities.

– Jenny Wheeler

Sources: Disrupt Africa, Grand Challenges in Global Health, Bitsoko
Photo: Coin Telegraph

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DEBUT Challenge Produces Innovative Medical Technology

DEBUT challenge

Every year the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) hosts a challenge for teams of undergraduate students to create cost-effective solutions to clinical needs that have yet to be met.

The winning design of the 2015 DEBUT challenge was the Viral Diagnostic Technology designed by a group of students from Lehigh University. This device was designed to help meet the World Health Organization’s recommendation that everyone diagnosed with HIV take a yearly viral load test to monitor the effectiveness of treatment. The viral load test is important in diagnosing and monitoring HIV.

The design addresses the issue of the lack of HIV treatment monitoring devices in impoverished areas where the majority of HIV-infected patients live, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa. The technology used allows for a simpler, faster and more affordable option of the viral load test with results coming out within the hour.

This design comes at a critical time as 35 million people in the world are living with HIV. Seventy-one percent of those are living in sub-Saharan Africa.

One of the runner-ups of the challenge was the FreePulse. The FreePulse was designed by a group of undergraduate students from the University of Texas at Austin. The patient monitor was decided upon when the team realized the unbalanced ratio of patient monitors to patient beds.

Thus, FreePulse was created. It is a low-cost patient monitor designed with the developing world in mind. It is durable, simple, and more affordable than conventional patient monitors. The average patient monitor costs between $1,000-$10,000. FreePulse has an estimated manufacturing price of $72, making it much more affordable for small hospitals in impoverished countries.

The NIBIB’s DEBUT Challenge is just one example of how biomedical technology has advanced society’s ability to improve global health and make it affordable. Global health is one step closer to reality through the advanced technology of biomedical engineering.

– Iona Brannon

Sources: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, NIH 1, NIH 2

Photo: Wikipedia

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Young Tech Entrepreneurs Challenging the Status Quo

The word “entrepreneur“ seems to carry a certain gravitas. Names like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates often come to mind when thinking about the most well known entrepreneurs. One might think of Silicon Valley as the hotbed of tech entrepreneurs, but a new wave of young, technologically inclined entrepreneurs is spreading in the developing world.

Long have been the days of governments and large non-government organizations (NGOs) dictating development in poorer countries. The age-old stereotype that the young are more technologically savvy than older ones holds true today. While better might not be the right word, younger people around the world are very connected into the technology world.

Because of this, some young entrepreneurs are combining technology and small business solutions to take the lead in changing the lives of fellow countrymen. Instead of a nation’s path being decided by outside investors, young entrepreneurs are putting their own country in the driving seat.

Many of these young entrepreneurs are tired with the status quo, and want improvements quicker than they are coming. So, instead of waiting for an NGO to fix a problem, they are taking issues by the scruff of the neck themselves. “Youth in Egypt want change and they’re not going to wait for it,” according to Waleed Abd el Rahman, a Cairo resident who runs a tech business forum there.

Rahman is working with a number of start-ups. One is developing an app that aims to help users navigate Cairo’s famously traffic-clogged streets. Another is working towards making private tutoring less expensive by providing online alternatives. Fed up with nuisances of their daily life, young Egyptians are taking charge, hoping to make a positive social impact and change the world.

Importantly, the spread of mobile phones throughout the developing world is only making tech entrepreneurs’ lives easier. More than a luxury item, the cell phone is a productive tool in Africa. Small businesses can track their finances and solve problems or inefficiencies. Africa is not the only place that tech entrepreneurs and mobile phones are making an impact. Both are blooming in India as well.

Shivani Siroya, from northern India, began a small company that developed InSight, a way for people to better keep track of their finances by staying up to date via text messages. They can keep track of their income and expenses through the service.

Even expats and foreigners are jumping on the entrepreneur train. Sean Blagsvedt, who lives in Bangalore, India, started Babajob. The platform helps informal workers look for better jobs by texting or calling from their mobile phone.

Gregory Rockson, originally from Ghana but living in San Francisco, started a tech company called mPharma when he heard that people back home were dying of treatable diseases, simply because they could not get medicine fast enough. By the time someone had found medicine for one heart disease patient, he was already dead.

To fix this, mPharma shows which pharmacies have which medicines in an online database. Pharmacies log what drugs they have so that doctors can see exactly where they can get them, cutting down precious time wasted going pharmacy to pharmacy looking for the right medicine. This is a perfect example of a young entrepreneur trying to make change in his country for the better.

– Greg Baker

Sources: Washington Post, PBS, NPR
Photo: PBS

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NGOs are Becoming More Effective Thanks to ICT

NGOs
Information and Communications Technology, or ICT for short, is the way of the future for non-government organizations (NGOs). By effectively using new ICT, all types of NGOs are becoming more efficient in how they track and record data, as well as plan for future projects.

This new technology breaks down the complexity of information that NGOs handle on a daily basis and helps format it in a way that makes it simpler for these groups to utilize in their future endeavors.

Information and Communications Technology encompasses all sorts of specific fields. It covers things such as radio, television, cellular phones, and computer technology.

By using ICT, NGOs can spread their messages more efficiently through a wider array of platforms, develop better on-site technologies in third-world countries, and establish long-term methods to record information on poverty levels around the world.

An article by the Dhaka Tribune delved into the many benefits that ICT brings with it for non-government organizations. An excerpt from this article, published on July 31, 2015, reads, “Using ICT for social development helps NGOs to have accessible, timely, relevant, and updated information to make on-time decisions and improve social policy.”

The article goes on to pose a scenario in which an NGO makes monthly visits to an area to provide villagers with resources and other aid.

The scenario focuses on two children who received inadequate amounts of milk based on their growth in between visits from the NGO. When ICT is instituted into this scenario, the NGO workers can enter into their phones the exact height, weight, and age of the children each visit in order to chart growth and provide the necessary amount of food and aid.

Today’s society is all about maximizing efficiency. Technology has evolved faster in this period of time than at any other point in history. With this evolution comes the betterment of all mankind. By using technology as a means to maximize the eradication of poverty, people all over the world can begin to feel hopeful that their lives are about to change.

– Diego Catala

Sources: Dhaka Tribune, Tech Target
Photo: Dhaka Tribune

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Google Street View Depicts Mongolia

Google Street View Depicts Mongolia - The Borgen Project
Since its launch in 2007, Google Street View, an extension of Google Maps, has provided users with realistic views of locations they might like to visit. People can actually navigate entire countries without leaving their homes thanks to these technologies and the number of popular tourist destinations has greatly increased.

Google Street View actually used their Google Trekkers—15 fixed-focus lenses with 360-degree panoramic shots every three meters—to capture incredibly important aspects of Mongolian culture. Nadaam, also known as the Three Games of Men, was going on in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on July 11-13 this year as the Google Trekkers made their way through. They were joined by CNN who covered the story.

Nadaam is a type of Mongolian Olympics composed of archery, wrestling and horse racing. The horse racing event is particularly interesting because jockeys are generally ages five to thirteen and are raised to ride horses even before they can walk. According to residents, the competition itself focuses more so on the skill of the horses and their compatibility with their riders rather than the rider’s command over the horses.

“So far, Google has captured breathtaking landscapes across five cities and six provinces including Ulaan Baatar, Darkhan, Khenti, Dornogovi, and Selenge,” and they’ve been mapping the area since Oct. 2014. Though falling copper prices and low investor confidence has placed Mongolia in financial difficulties, Google hopes to raise tourism profiles.

“At Khursgul Lake, the second-largest freshwater lake in Asia, the team trekked across its frozen surface on a horse-drawn sled, providing breathtaking views of Mongolia’s landscape.”

Including its projects in Mongolia, Google Street View has also managed to capture remote islands, the Pyramids of Giza and the Amazon Jungle.

– Anna Brailow

Sources: CNN, Sky
Photo: Discovery News

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Needle-Free Alternatives to Syringes for Developing Countries

Vaccination is one of the most successful and potent methods of combating viral and infectious diseases today. In fact, the most effective method of prevention against many potentially epidemic diseases is vaccination.

The administration of vaccines is largely through injection of the vaccine intravenously or intramuscularly. The process of vaccination involves introducing into the body an innocuous form of the infection- certain cellular products of the disease-causing microbe or virus that is not capable of reproducing or spreading. This stimulates the production of antibodies against the particular infection the vaccine is targeting.

As successful as vaccination is, the method of delivery of the vaccine that is a syringe can have notoriously harmful implications. The traditional syringe uses a needle that is injected into the body and therefore comes in contact with the patient’s blood. This contact with blood can be very dangerous if proper precautions are not taken, as blood serum can transfer many viral diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

The proper usage of medical syringes includes their proper sterilization before injecting a patient, which is done by the manufacturing companies. To ensure that the needle is completely free of any microbial or viral agents, the syringe needs to be used right after packaging is removed. Moreover, used syringes should never be used on another individual.

These precautions are vital to ensuring the safety of patients being vaccinated and is standard medical procedure. However, in many developing countries, syringes are reused on other patients, especially where effective regulation is lacking. Illegal businesses have been found guilty of taking used syringes, ineffectively sterilizing them and reselling them for use. This misuse of syringe needles leads to approximately 1 million deaths per year. It is also one of the leading causes of HIV/AIDS, with 10 percent of cases of HIV/AIDS in the United States being the consequence of intravenous drug use with unclean syringes.

One of the solutions to these problems is obviously to enforce tighter regulations, ensuring contaminated syringes are disposed of properly so accessibility to those is reduced. Hospitals can enforce stricter sterilization policies. However, these policies are not very likely to be effective, especially in poorer countries who may lack resources for enforcing these regulations. Moreover, limiting the access to used syringes for drug users can be particularly problematic.

Another solution to this problem is to eliminate the needles in syringes altogether. Recently, needle-free syringes have become popular alternatives for syringes. The needle-free syringe, as the name suggests, does not use a needle to inject the vaccine into the bloodstream. Instead, it uses a high-pressure gradient to force vaccine liquid into the tissue. The vaccine is forced at high pressure through the skin through an orifice of the syringe, which in modern syringes has been made as small as the diameter of a human hair. This method also distributes the medication or vaccine better through the tissue, as the medicine penetrates through the skin into the surrounding tissue. The syringe never comes into contact directly with blood, so the risk of contamination is reduced. Also, the syringe is not suited for substance abuse, as those drugs are administered intravenously.

The needle-free syringes have been quite successful in their delivery of vaccines as well as their safety of usage. Different types of needle-free syringes have been developed for administering different types of drugs with increased efficiency. These syringes are more expensive than ordinary syringes, however. With increasing demand and development, it is probable the needle-free syringes would become as desirable in their cost as they are in their technique.

– Atifah Safi

Sources: Bioject, MIT, WHO
Photo: Path

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Zidisha Direct Loans Boosts Entrepreneurship

direct_loans
Big business ideas and economic enterprises are no longer limited to the corporate boardroom. The digitally connected world has provided entrepreneurs from all corners of the globe ways in which to make their concepts known; social media and increased mobile access have given tomorrow’s innovators a voice they lacked in the past. The main issue, however, is that those in developing countries still lack access to funding and capital, no matter how strong their idea.

That’s where Zidisha comes in. Zidisha is a nonprofit micro-lending service that allows potential borrowers to receive direct loans from an online community. The organization’s main goal is to promote economic development by cutting out lending middlemen and local banks that often charge supremely high-interest rates on loans.

The process is quite simple. Potential borrowers need only reliable online access, something that is only becoming more and more available. The borrowers then submit a profile describing themselves and their intended use of the loan. A one-time processing fee of around $12 is charged.

Zidisha is a very small company and merely provides a platform for users to interact directly. “We’ve built a decentralized marketplace that has no offices, no employees or loan officers in borrower countries,” says company founder Julia Kurnia. Zidisha lets borrowers receive funds via SMS straight from lenders at a zero percent interest rate.

Loans are typically small. Zidisha states that the average loan is $200 to $300. Loans have enabled entrepreneurs to buy computers for an Internet café and sewing machines for a village shop. Both have relatively low costs, but a significant impact. According to Wired Magazine, the computers that were funded by Zidisha loans have empowered many, as they have been used to teach office programs like Microsoft Word and Excel.

Zidisha’s purpose is clear in its name. The word means “grow” in Swahili. By charging no interest and only asking for the principal returned, Zidisha enables borrowers’ ideas, which would normally be denied by the typical financial institutions, to flourish.

– Joe Kitaj

Sources: Wired, Zidisha, Venture Beat
Photo: Zidisha

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African Skills Initiative Receives $60 Million

African Skills Initiative Receives US $60 Million Investment
International Business Machines Corps (IBM) has announced its investment of $60 million in the African Skills Initiative. This investment will fund the development of the next generation of technical experts for the next three years.

With this investment, IBM plans to expand its Africa University Program and the Africa Technical Academy to more than 20 countries.

Dr. Naguib Attia, IBM Chief Technology Officer and VP Technical Leadership MEA says, “With a research laboratory, innovation centers, offices and other advanced facilities in more than 24 African countries, IBM has the highest concentration of technical talent on the African continent. As the leader in science and technology in Africa, we see it as IBM’s responsibility to make a strategic investment in skills development helping to lay the foundations of the Africa of tomorrow.”

IBM is teaming up with the Kenya Education Network to deliver certification courses to students and faculty studying and teaching in the 50 universities already in the Africa University Program network. In such a fast-paced and growing market such as Kenya, the African Skills Initiative will benefit the population greatly.

These courses will develop and enhance the students’ readiness to enter the job market. With a focus on what happens in the work world, students will be prepared and feel more qualified for the technical workspace.

The expansion of the program will benefit IT professionals in Africa. The program focuses on teaching skills in cloud, analytics and huge data technologies. This kind of training is an important step for the next phase of social and economic development in Africa.

It is very likely that IBM may offer employment to students who graduate from these courses with impressive scores. This would give incentive to people in Africa not only to receive an education but to also start their careers as IT professionals.

IBM’s latest project is focused on the next generation of technology and experts than its current business. With its current services such as software development, assistance and software products, IBM foresees that more IT professionals will be beneficial in the future.

With the expansion of the Africa University Program and the Africa Technical Academy, IBM is encouraging individuals to receive an education. With this education, they gain a greater chance of being employed by IBM.

The movement toward technology can already be seen today. As IBM predicts, the world will only become more dependent on technology. With this surge in technology, more IT professionals will be needed.

IBM’s investment of $60 million in the African Skills Initiative will fund the education of the IT professionals of tomorrow. But it will also educate people that are in need of the many jobs to come in the IT world. This initiative will further not only the world of technology but the lives of people.

– Kerri Szulak

Sources: Bidness, KTen
Photo: IT News Africa

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Silicon Valley and Global Energy Poverty

Silicon Valley & Global Energy Poverty
Over one billion people around the world do not have reliable access to electricity. Furthermore, 2.6 billion people are reliant upon biomass to cook, which causes harmful indoor pollution. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately four million people die each year due to habitual inhalation from these toxins.

The Silicon Valley is at the apex of technological achievement and is inhabited by some of the brightest and most creative minds on the planet. There has been a mounting international appeal to Silicon Valley to use their intellectual tech brilliance for philanthropic efforts.

There has been criticism for focusing on solutions to micro problems that intend to only service the individual, as opposed to global humanitarian issues. Responsibility, however, cannot rest solely with the entrepreneurs themselves. Widespread global issues do not always necessarily lend themselves to the venture capitalist system.

Tech entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa notes this struggle: “Investors believe that the quickest hits come from building apps or games that go viral, or from creating websites that automate business processes. This was surely the case in the social-media era, when even children who had not completed their college education could write apps. But we’ve built enough messaging and photo-sharing apps, and have bigger opportunities now. It is possible for the young and the old to solve real problems, to great effect.”

Continents like Africa, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, have limited access to electricity and are being viewed as a possible new frontier for tech consumption. In some parts of the continent, Africans walk miles to the nearest power grid just for a cell phone charger. Even then, because of the demand, it can take hours and it is expensive. For this reason, solar energy has recently seen a boom in usage particularly by telecom companies being funded by tech investors. The rationale is that broadening electrical access across the continent will hopefully cause a surge in mobile phone usage.

Tesla has created a Powerwall home storage 10kwh battery that is capable of powering 1,000 watts of current for 10 hours. In comparison, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates the average American household uses 1,200 watts, 24 hours per day. The battery is capable of recharging via solar or wind energy. The only downside is that the battery unit costs $4,000, which does not include installation. The average per capita income in Sub-Saharan Africa is well below $3,000, making the unit well out of most price ranges.

Nonetheless, the Powerwall home storage stands as a promising, albeit a rudimentary example of Silicon Valley creativity and ingenuity being applied for a global purpose.

– The Borgen Project

Sources: National Geographic, Huffington Post, Wadhwa, Forbes
Photo: Silicon Beat